Election Stuff for Kids

Here some ideas for what you might do or use with your kids tomorrow or Wednesday before you go vote.

• United Streaming has a video of the book "So You Want to Be President." It's entertaining and the kids enjoy it. It doesn't give much info on the the election process. It's more historical info about past presidents.
• This link on time for kids has some great stuff. Even if you don't show this site to your kids, it might help you to know what to say about the candidates and their ideas, especially in the meet the candidates section. If you can, spend some time reading what TFK has to offer. It's probably the best stuff for kids on the internet about the election.
  http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/election08/?
• This site also has some good stuff. You might check out the first thing on the list "Read all about Electing a President." It's written in a very simple way and has graphics that help the kids understand.
  http://www.pocanticohills.org/election/election.htm
  
• Scholastic has quite a bit like TFK, but I think TFK is a little bit more informative than the scholastic site. Although they both have some games, that you might want your class to play in computer lab for a couple minutes. You might want to click around the scholastic site to see if anything jumps out at you.
  http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/election2008.htm
• This article on PBS Parents gives good tips for talking to young children about the election.
  http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/election2008.htm

I hope this helps you come up with ways to present the election information to your students tomorrow and Wednesday. Even if you don't have time to go through all of this stuff, I hope it helps you to at least have a brief conversation with your kids. Encourage them to discuss their choice with their parents at home. Just my personal opinion: I think it's important for the teacher to keep personal judgements out of the classroom so that each child feels safe to voice their viewpoint. Have fun voting on Wednesday!

Caroline

The first post

Hi colleagues,

I hope this blog becomes something you can use to generate and share ideas for what to do in the computer lab. We all want our computer lab activities to be meaningful and enrich our curriculum. But let's be honest: sometimes we just don't know what the heck to do. I encourage you to email me questions that you would like to present to your colleagues. Use the Post a Comment link to share your ideas. So a sample entry might look something like this:

Hi guys,

Barbara Sassen emailed me and asked if we had any ideas on how to do some pre-writing activities in the computer lab.

I found something on Gretchen Bernabei's website (http://trailofbreadcrumbs.net/sharing.html) that you could use to create an AppleWorks or Microsoft Word document. She says to make a list of moments, a quicklist, that the kids can use later as possible journal or writing topics. This is what Gretchen suggests:

Here are the moments I often use, to make a quick list of memories (moments, not eras):

1-3 Moments you were proud of someone else
4-6 Moments you struggled with something
7-9 Moments you'd keep if your memories were getting erased
10 - An animal moment
11 - A moment about a gift you gave someone else
12 - A moment someone put money into your hands

I also like to use:
holiday moments
bad clothing moments
bad haircut moments
great/bad birthday moments
unfortunate food moments
moments you couldn’t stop laughing

The idea of a quick list came from Paula Brock’s book, Nudges.

During this lesson, you could review saving documents correctly. You should also teach the kids how to use numbering or bullets to make a list easy to read.

What else could Barbara do? Any ideas?

And then you would respond with any idea you have or something you have used before that you have found to be effective. I think this blog could be a really useful tool if people participate. Posting a comment can be done quickly and easily. I hope we can really get into using this. Post a comment now if you are excited about this idea. Hope to hear from you soon!